


Diving

by queen_ypolita



Category: Purposes of Love - Mary Renault
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Challenge Response, Community: maryrenaultfics, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_ypolita/pseuds/queen_ypolita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mic thinks about Vivian and diving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diving

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [maryrenaultfics Summer Challenge](http://community.livejournal.com/maryrenaultfics/360236.html). The prompt was **swim**.
> 
> In my head, this takes place in June 1938.

That evening, after Vivian had gone, when he was hanging his swimming things to dry, it occurred to him that maybe it was the diving that had made him feel so bold that he had forgotten that he should take things slowly with Vivian. The first kiss had been rather unforgiveable, but it was all so confusing sometimes. Every time he had spent time with Vivian alone, he had learnt a hundred ways in which she wasn't at all like Jan and how desirable she was as herself, only to see Jan in the way she held her head, in her movements and speech patterns. He sat down to write to her, to apologise, to explain, anything.

Diving had felt wonderful after so long; there hadn't been many opportunities since Cambridge. He had started off by wanting to show how it was supposed to be done, but it hadn't taken long for him to forget everything about other people watching and passing judgement on his style and abilities.

He loved diving when it went smootly like that, when he stopped thinking about it and became a well-coordinated body that instinctively knew what it was doing, limbs and head finding their right positions and the whole arching gracefully into enticing water. He had got into diving by showing some natural aptitude, and finding it a good way to get out of the hated games, all the miserable muddy fields in the winter. Given the chance, he hadn't wasted it, but it had taken countless long tedious hours of practising for diving to become something he loved.

Smoothing the still blank sheet of paper in front of him, he suddenly remembered a passage from a recent letter from a Cambridge friend, a passage that came after three pages filled with furious scribbling about European politics, and a recent film he had seen: "_You'd love the diving sequence. I can see it must be cleverly photographed and even more carefully edited, but the end result is astonishing. The divers look almost otherworldly; graceful like the best of divers anywhere, but weightless and effortless in a way I've never seen in real life. Maybe you have."_ Without seeing the film, he wasn't sure, but he had certainly felt that way, weightless, graceful, capable of anything. It was almost worth being him just for being able to dive like that.

He sighed; it did him no good to contemplate on diving when he had other things on his mind. It was getting late, so he picked up a pencil and started drafting his letter.


End file.
